NORTH TOWN VILLAGE STEP CLOSER TO REALITY

Jeanette AlmadaCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Developers of a proposed 261-unit mixed-income community called North Town Village are close to assembling the land for their project, a narrow, 7-acre strip around Halsted Street stretching from Scott Street to Eastman Avenue and from Halsted to Ogden Avenue.

City officials got Community Development Commission approval last week to sell the last parcel of land along that strip to North Town Village LLC, a partnership of Holsten Realty, owned by Peter Holsten, and Kenard Corp., owned by Hal and Geri Lichterman.

Holsten says this final land acquisition frees the partnership to secure financing for the $64.3 million project, which will include rental apartments as well as for-sale homes. Because it lies within the Near North TIF (tax increment financing) district and the Clybourn/Ogden Redevelopment Area, the project will qualify for TIF financing up to $8.6 million.

Construction is expected to start in mid-December on rental units in a seven-story midrise and in two six-flats and two eight-flats. There will be 116 one-bedroom to four-bedroom rental units in all.

They will be leased to a market mix of 30 percent public housing tenants; 20 percent families earning 60 percent of area median income, or $38,200 for a family of four; and 50 percent market rate. Rents will range from $400 to $675, except $900 to $1,300 for the market-rate rents.

When those midrises are completed next spring, Holsten says he'll begin marketing the project's for-sale units: 145 condominiums built in town homes, coach houses, six-flats, eight-flats and other multifamily buildings.

The for-sale units will be marketed to the same income mix. Prices will start at $104,000. Buyers can qualify for down payment and mortgage assistance through the city Department of Housing. Half of those for-sale units will sell at market prices, estimated by Holsten to range from $211,600 to $328,000.

Thirty percent of for-sale units will be leased to the Chicago Housing Authority as replacement housing for Cabrini Green residents.